cherrypicking items to copy to new phone after backup

Not if you are restoring from iTunes

It is all or nothing

Restore your device from an iCloud or iTunes backup - Apple Support

Buffallo Bill wrote:

Thanks, I really only want my notes as there are some important things in there, is there any way I can copy them and email them to myself?

sync your notes back with whatever icloud or email program you use to sync them to.

You can import your photos and copy important documents directly to your Mac and then sync them back. You could also do an iCloud backup with a limited number of items selected: Settings > iCloud > select what you want, but be aware that other settings will return as well. To do what you want I would try importing and copying manually.

Import photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

It would be quite helpful if you share how you are using Notes or how you are keeping them in sync. If you use iCloud Notes, you can simply enable iCloud on the new phone and then turn on Notes. The notes will download to the phone after you do that.

Buffallo Bill wrote:

Thanks for that, I don't really know how to do that, is that quite easy to do?

Well if you use icloud to sync your notes, you would go to settings - icloud - then you see a list of programs you can sync to icloud - notes is one of them.

if you sync with an email program i.e yahoo/exchange/gmail - setttings - mail - account - then you'll see notes there too..

It is fairly simple - here are the steps

On current phone

Settings - Notes - on my phone account - toggle to OFF - this ensures that you write notes only to the cloud backed up area

Settings - iCloud - Notes - make sure it is toggled ON for back up

Settings - iCloud - Backup - Turn it ON - use backup now to force a manual backup

Preferably connect your phone to Power and be in a wifi zone

Once backup completes - log into https://www.icloud.com with your Apple ID credentials and see if your notes are there

If yes - then syncing the new phone will restore them

On your phone go to Settings>iCloud. Are you signed into and using iCloud on your phone? If you are using iCloud, go to Settings>iCloud>Notes. Is is turned on?

A couple of other things to check. Launch the Notes app on the phone. Do you see iCloud Notes under the folders heading like this with ome number after it indicating the number of notes? Are any other notes in other folders? On my phone, and email accounts, etc?

Notes are not contained in the backup in iCloud. Any content that resides in iCloud is not contained in the iCloud backup because it will simply download to the device when iCloud is enabled. That's why I am putting you through this exercise.... to confirm that the notes are in iCloud.

Notes ARE stored in an iTunes backup, but the only way to retrieve the notes in the backup is to restore the entire iTunes backup. You can't cherry pick.